There is a first time for everything, and this was my first time making a road trip specifically to bag a state’s high point and this trip provided a number of other firsts:
- Using my recently purchased Zpacks duplex and flexing it on zero people
- Winter camping/hiking/backpacking trip
- Alone with my thoughts in my tent and nearby gun shots go off – more below!
I headed out making a straight shot from St. Louis to the Kentucky high point, Black Mountain on December 29th. It’s about an eight-and-a-half-hour drive and with the time change I got in around 5pm EST. The trail head has two pull off parking areas, one of which is actually across the Virginia border which brings into question is the Kentucky high point really in Kentucky? It sounds crazy, and it’s a joke, but I do continue to be amazed at the unclear elevations of some of these mountains. On Wikipedia it says the elevation is 4,145ft, same with the road sign, the plaque at the top of the mountain, also in the Wikipedia article calls it 4,139 ft and on all trails is 4,131 ft. Well, this is a blog post trip report, and we are on the internet so dare I say the mountain is 6,350 ft.
Once I got there, Erick who was patiently waiting and I cooked up some dinner using a camp stove and the electric outlet in the back of my Tacoma for the rice cooker. We had a really good venison and rice with coconut milk mashup. If only some dingus didn’t leave the stove on the truck bed cover unattended and let the first attempt at the venison and the pan slide off and into the mud. My bad.
From there we setup out tents in the wind and on top of the snow and called it a night. It way my first time setting up and using the Zpacks Duplex and wow this tent is nice! It’s also huge and still super lightweight. It held up well with the wind and the temps which I was overall nervous about as I have never done winter camping before, but we survived the night, but it was a little chilly and windy with temps hovering around 30. The only big event of the night was shortly after settling into our tents there was a clip of gun shots that went off just a couple hundred feet from our tent. In the city all the punk kids are into tagging and grabbing road signs, but in the country the kids are all about the shoot and scoot when it comes to road signs, I guess.
We waited for the sun to rise and then made the hike to the summit and back, which was 3.54 miles according to my watch. The official route is just a service road and really easy. The area still had some snow coverage, so the hike was really beautiful, and the only thing better was the infrastructure at the top! On the hike we only ran into one other family and while the hike was not strenuous or long, it was good to get a state high point and not be to beat for the rest of the trip.
Last modified: November 29, 2021
